There are two types of "play" in business.
1. Play to play.
2. Play to win.
When a company play to play, it has no clear winning aspiration that it is working towards, even if it has a vision and mission statement. A business that play to play is not trying to become number one or two in its industry. It is not trying to be the leader in a niche. Often, this entity has what its executive calls a strategic plan but nothing to do with strategy.
To play to win means a company must have a winning aspiration and a strategy in place. A strategy provides customers with a unique value that allows a business to have an advantage over its competitors in the marketplace. This advantage is usually not easily eroded. An effective strategy has focus and allows the organization to align financial, technical, technological, human, and other resources in the same direction.
Southwest Airlines built its strategy to capture market share. They made major decisions, like having one type of aircraft and flying point-to-point. That allows them to have a highly expert maintenance team working on one type of aircraft, economies of scale in getting service parts, and reduced costs to customers. There was a clear model of how to win the marketplace, and that defines an effective strategy.
Many of what we consider strategic plans typically have objectives, KPIs, initiatives, etc. but no model of how the organization will win in the marketplace.
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The socks say "good luck" for anyone who was looking that closely 😉